Bad road, but was beautiful nature and nice weather with sky for the sun. Think I past 4 check point today. No problem, they only wont to know what i do, how far i cycling........ I come little to fast to one big dump and i almost fall down. I hear a terrible sound from the bike and was sure my frame was broken now. Look everywhere and my frame was ok. But 2 spoke in front wheel and 7 spoke in back wheel get broken. My back wheel is bad now and I jumping up and down when I cycling on my crooked wheel after thats.. Was invited to stay with the border police in Cote d Ivoire today. They speak French, but one of they speak English so I have a nice time with them. I show them some picture from my trip and they love the picture from Colombia where I stay with the army. The Ivory Coast has 17 million inhabitants. There has been civil war here to and it is still quite unsafe. People hope for peace in the near future, but many believe that there will be war again. The UN are here of which I have passed 2 UN checkpoints and 4 military checkpoint in one day. One good thing that comes out of the rainy season is that everywhere everything has turned into vibrant shades of green. There are more mountains here and so much more beautiful nature. It is so pleasant and rewarding when biking in with so much beautiful nature around. I stayed in a guest house for 2 dollar per night. There was a shower that actually had water, albeit cold and there aws even electrical power. I have to say that it's been a very long time ago since I've seen anything like that in a guest house. Would you believe it, I've gone a got diarrhea again! I can't tell how boring this is. Usually the stomach gets stronger after some weeks with different bacterias but that's certainly not happening to me! I got so little sleep as I was on the toilet all night. I really hope that things will be better tomorrow.
I've been 14 days with UN Tom and have got a little fatter due to eating a lot of Norwegian food. I had to stay that long because I am waiting for my new camera and mini laptop. My brother helped me with some money to get this stuff, which is very nice of him. The camera is an Olympus SP 560 with a great 18 optical zoom. Not too heavy nor expensive. My laptop is an Aspire One which has a 8.9 screen and weighs 1 kg. This is perfect for me as I don't want to have too carry too much stuff in my bag but there is not a lot that you can do with the laptop except to write or check my e-mail. I am happy now as I don't like to cycle without a camera as you never know what surprises you can encounter on the road, lions etc.....
I have brought lots of good nourishing food with me as I really don't want to be getting diarrhoea again. Tom was very nice and gave me loads of Norwegian food, about 20 kg actually. I bought 3 kg groats which makes a good breakfast and also with Banyan I am able to cycle for 5 - 6 hours without eating again. He also gave me 2 months supply of malaria pills which are very expensive here to buy. I have also got some Norwegian books which were kindly donated by Tom and another Norwegian UN police working here. There was many a time when I missed having a good book to read.
There are many signs and large posters on the road side,giving out messages like, "Rape is a crime", "Stop mob violence" etc. It's so sad to read things like this. War can make life so difficult.
The cycling has been very good this week because I have ate a lot of good food. You can well imagine how terrible it can be cycling on an empty stomach as well as having chronic diarrhea . Remember that a hungry man is an angry man! The scenery here is so spectacular and beautiful with lots of jungle and river. However along the coast a lot of it is cut back. I also saw a lot of rubber farms the most being in Firestone Bay. America aids Liberia much and I see many things with USAID.......written on. I am often told that people are nicer from this region and I am not getting people begging me for money or being asked to be taken to Europe. It really can be too much sometimes, but in saying that I do understand why. I saw some pictures of myself today and I must say that I was surprised to see just how very thin I've got with hardly any real muscles left on my upper body, only on my legs. I really must get back into training and get my body finely tuned.
Some people from a small bombed out village invited me to their home. They had some really ugly scars all over their bodies. Just before we got to the village I saw a sign saying "No to ritualistic killing, keep murderers in jail and say no to sassy wood and forced initiations". I had no idea what the hell that was all about! I know that religion is a tradition here, but not ritualistic killings! I tried asking someone about this, but they didn't want to say anything.
They live here similar to what we did a 100 years ago with all of them, the parents with their four kids all sleeping together in the only room and on a mattress in the middle of the floor and all of the kids running around with the chickens, dogs, cats and pigs. I have to say that it is so nice to see this simple kind of family life. You know they don't even have electricity. There has been great curious interest shown with my digital camera because nobody around here has ever seen this sort of thing before and they loved seeing photos of themselves and their friends. I gave them a slide show on the camera which really got them laughing a lot. It is so rewarding to see someone getting so much pleasure from something so simple.
When I went into town I met a journalist who told me about a recent ritual killing. Many people around there still believe in voodoo. They practice this in the belief that this will increase their power. Due to the war they have also been known to take peoples' body parts and eat purely from hunger. However, he told me that most of the time they use them for voodoo rituals.
I tried to get him to write down the religion which is practiced as well as the name of those people involved but he wouldn't as he said that this could be dangerous for me if I were to know. He said that they can easily inject me with evil thoughts and I could get myself killed. Wow! is religion ever strong here.
We drove around the city today and met the town chief, an old man who inherited the title from his father. He has so much power that the city government can get problems if they don't accept his wishes. He told me many other things like the biggest problem they have in town is water as all help organizations' think the city has sufficient water and the only help required is in the countryside. He also said that there had been some ritual killings' and in the war there were lot's of them. The journalist also took me to a hospital for Lepers. I really did think that this virus had completely disappeared from the earth. It was quite disturbing seeing people without legs, fingers and deformed bodies.
During the rainy season the road looks like a muddy river. I saw two trucks had toppled over and there were a lot of cars that stuck and couldn't move. I fell over two times and literally ended up covered from head to toe in mud.
The Town Chief.
A little distance from town there was a small village with people who believe in the old traditional religion. They believe firmly in mother nature such as mountains and rivers. The town Chief promised me that there was no voodoo happening there as that is a different religion to the one they practice. When the mining company was formed back in 1959, the people moved away from the area and in so doing didn't receive any compensation from either the mining company or government. He also told me that one of the company's' was from Sweden.
After being hospitalized for malaria , cycling in the rainy season and having a rough encounter with some Diamond prospectors made me think that I would rather like to return home. But then I found out about “Gilde "Grillpölser in Liberia ........!!!!!!!!! (Norwegian hot dogs)
After my stay in prison in Freetown I moved in with an Irishman working there. During my stay I only went and got malaria which I think I contracted in the bush. Not very clever specially after suffering two months of diarrhoea. I think I now know where it came from. The pain in my loins were the worst and whilst in the hospital they took blood samples. A nice female doctor from India told me that my health was very bad and started to talk to me as though I was a child. No alcohol for the next few weeks, eating as much as I can and lots of fruit juices. She also advised me to take vitamin pills. Amazingly, she was actually able to detect from my armpit hairs that I was undernourished. I found that Freetown, which was named by the freed slaves, to be a very interesting city. Some of it is colonial, but what I did notice was just how many wooden houses there were. These houses are small and I am sure had once been very beautiful, but the ravages of time and poverty have since changed their characters. Whilst there I lived in a more European style house. I met with so many nice people working on aid, housing and school projects etc. I thanked them very much and cycled on. It was difficult riding now due to the rainy season reaching it's peak. It was torrential rain most of the day which meant me having to wait until it eased off a bit before continuing. Even so, if it rained for a few hours it was enough to get me saturated even though I was wearing rain gear.
I experienced very bad flooded roads making riding very hard and slow. The area is very flat and the jungle has been stripped down. One advantage of the many streams here is that you can cool down when it gets too hot. I was in a diamond area where they are dug up from the river bed. There were many stories told from over the years which the people related to me. Theft is common and if you get caught you will find yourself in real deep shit. The whole city is full of diamond shops.
I went further into Liberia where I met a former military officer who said that these were the 20 bloodiest years of his life. I told him that I served in the military for a year and that we could therefore be brothers. Officer Balla Musa
What I didn't tell him though was that I spent my whole service life in an office writing bills for the Air Force. I was invited by the battalion to spend the night there and we spent the evening drinking Palm wine and he told us stories. I could hardly believe my ears hearing of the atrocities that had occurred. Killings and amputations of women ,children and older people's limbs. No one was spared. I met many rebels and asked them why they did these things and no one wanted to admit to any of it. However, they did tell me that it was more often than not whilst under the influence of drugs. One man, with a bizarre sense of humour, told me after a few beers what exactly went on there. Can you believe it that before amputating they often asked whether they preferred one arm longer or shorter. The short arm meant amputating from the elbow, while the long arm meant from the wrist. No matter how sad it was I did laugh a bit as to the way this story was told. In addition, most people don't think about it much these days and only smile. Now he says he is without any bitterness as, for him, it was simply an unpleasant chapter.
I received the friendliest of welcomes at the Liberian border where I was invited by an immigration officer to have a beer to celebrate my arrival in the country.. Norwegians work on many major projects here building schools, etc. Plan Norge (Norway) is one of the companies. After two decades of civil war, UN soldiers from all over the world ensure that peace is maintained which happens to be the most expensive UN operation in the world and now Liberia is one of the safest countries in Africa. At present I am living with a friend who I had previously swum with. He is the operation area manager of a UN department. We spent a few pleasant evenings with Norwegian politicians. I must admit that I do live well here almost like I was at home. One feels best in his own culture. There is a lot of Norwegian food here, Norwegian hot dogs, etc. It’s been a long time since I tasted really, good Norwegian food. Unfortunately, I don't have many new photos to illustrate all of this. Tom at work
Haircut between norwegians and the UN police
My camera only takes dark pictures but I do have a new one coming hopefully arriving next week which was ordered for me by a Norwegian UN soldier.
Ironman Petter
Norseman(Ironman) movie from Norway
On the other hand, my hobby agent, Petter Guttormsen did the world's hardest Iron man contest (Norseman)which entailed a 4 km swim through the Eidangerfjorden, 180 km cycle to Hardangervidda and 42km run to Gaustatoppen. I took part in 2005 in this same competition and it was then that I thought the whole world belonged to me and that nothing else was impossible thereafter. Petter , I congratulate you on your success.
